15Apr15

Nokia to buy Alcatel-Lucent to grow in telecom equipment

Nokia is to buy Alcatel-Lucent in an all-share deal that values its smaller French
rival at 15.6 billion euros ($16.6 billion), building up its telecom equipment
business to compete with market leader Ericsson.

The combined company will have about 114,000 employees and combined sales
of around 26 billion euros. In mobile equipment it will rank a strong second, with
global market share of 35 percent, behind Sweden's Ericsson with 40 percent
and ahead of Huawei's 20 percent, according to Bernstein Research.

The Finnish company will give Alcatel-Lucent shareholders 0.55 shares in the
combined company for each of their old shares, resulting in 33.5 percent of the
entity being in Alcatel shareholders' hands if the tender offer is fully taken up.

The deal will be finalised in the first half of 2016 and is expected to result in 900
million euros of operating cost savings by the end of 2019, the companies said
on Wednesday.

The new Nokia will have stronger exposure to the important North American
market, with key contracts with AT&T and Verizon and a fast-growing Internet
routing business.

Nokia shares rose 3 percent at the opening, while Alcatel-Lucent fell 11 percent,
reversing trends on Tuesday when the talks were first acknowledged by the
companies.

Alcatel shareholders were disappointed because they hoped for a part-cash offer,
while Nokia holders were relieved that the group had not overpaid, a trader said.

Nokia initially approached Alcatel-Lucent about buying only the wireless business
but was rebuffed, leading to the broader deal, Alcatel boss Michel Combes told
Reuters in an interview.

The deal carries significant risks, however. The track record of mergers in the
sector - including the two that gave birth to Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent a decade
ago - has been poor. Prior deals were plagued by the difficulty of cutting costs in
an R&D intensive business, rivals stealing contracts while the companies were
distracted by their integrations, and struggles over power within the married
firms.

Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri sought to reassure by saying he had learned from the
past.

"This is not a joint venture, so there will be no governance issues," he said on a
call with investors.

"We will take a no politics, no nonsense approach to running the business, and
have learned from past mistakes."

French Jobs Pledge

Nokia pledged to keep France as "a vibrant centre of the combined company"
and not to cut jobs beyond what Alcatel had already planned, especially
protecting research and development sites at Villarceaux and Lannion.

Alcatel-Lucent has some 6,000 employees in France. Maintaining jobs was a key
demand of the French state for its backing of the deal.

Nokia sold its once-dominant handset business last year after struggling to
compete with smartphones by Apple and Samsung. That deal left it with the
network unit, a smaller map unit and a portfolio of technology patents.

Nokia said its growth profile would improve from the deal and predicted sales
growth rate of about 3.5 percent for 2014 to 2019.

Nevertheless some analysts remained concerned.

"Nokia's risk profile will increase considerably... The risk is that the merger will
become a long and rocky road and investors lose their patience following
through the integration programme that will take years," said analyst Mikael
Rautanen from Inderes Equity Research.

Other analysts, however, said that Nokia and CEO Suri have a good record on
restructuring.

"There is no reason to doubt that this deal too wouldn't increase shareholder
value... We know that there are risks related to France and the cost cuts, but I
believe that Nokia has calculated a margin of safety to the deal price," said
strategist Jukka Oksaharju from Nordnet brokerage.

Separately, Nokia confirmed it was exploring the sale of its HERE mapping unit,
which analysts value at up to 6.9 billion euros. It also said further asset sales
could be undertaken once the deal was completed.

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